The graphics look great and the game never crashes on me but in the majority of games, especially night games, the crowd is a mass of day-glo and black squares. Also some of the players hair is flourescent colors. The field, kits and stadium look fine though. Whats up?

I had a similar problem in FIFA2000, where the stadium and crowd were only a black mass when I was playing night-games with the highest possible resolution. Try to set the resolution to the lowest possible, which I guess is 640*480, and see if things improves then. The graphics should still be acceptable. That worked for me, at least.
I think, maybe that EA haven't optimized the game for your specific card, what 3Dcard is it that you have BTW?